Another prosecution witness in the trial of the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the erstwhile Beige Bank, Mike Nyinaku, will on Monday, April 17, 2023 mount the witness box to testify at the high court.
That comes after the first prosecution witness, Julius Ayivor, winded up his testimony at the court presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe on Monday, April 3.
Cash cow
In his summary, Mr Ayivor alleged that the Beige Bank was turned into a “Cash Cow” where depositors funds were siphoned by Nyinaku and his many companies, including The Beige Group Limited.
The proceedings centred on one of the prosecution’s case involving a total of GH¢141 million allegedly siphoned out of the accounts of 23 customers of the defunct Beige Bank on the instructions of the accused person.
The funds, according to the witness, were allegedly siphoned to The Beige Group Limited, a company wholly owned by the accused person.
Two customers Tobinco Pharmaceuticals Limited and Ernest & Barbs Construction Limited were cited in Mr Ayivor’s witness statement as a sample of the 23 affected customers.
In the case of Ernest & Barbs, the witness alleged the siphoning of GH¢17 million from Ernest & Barbs’ account in January 2018, while an amount of GH¢20 million was siphoned from Tobinco’s account in March 2018, all to the benefit of the accused person and his company, The Beige Group Limited.
Consent
During cross-examination of the witness, counsel for Nyinaku, Thaddeus Sory, suggested that the evidence provided by the prosecution indicated that the customers whose funds were allegedly siphoned from their accounts knew that their funds were being transferred to The Beige Group Limited and also indeed sanctioned the transfers.
Mr Sory asked, “as the Receiver who investigated, did you find out if those customers were specifically targeted or there was a special reason why their deposits was a subject of the transfers to The Beige Group Limited?”
Mr Ayivor answered, “I do not know if they [the affected customers] were specifically targeted or whether there was a special reason that necessitated the siphoning of their funds.
“What is apparent from the grand scheme that was perpetrated by the accused person is that once he noted that the customers had a lot of funds in their account, that became an opportunity for the accused person to oversee the siphoning of those funds to himself and his companies,” the witness said.
Mr Sory then put to the witness that the only reason the customers had their funds transferred to The Beige Group Limited was because they sanctioned those transfers.
Mr Ayivor, who disagreed with that suggestion, answered “My Lady, that is a blatant untruth.